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In 2022, the chess world was thrown into a scandal when one of its top players, Hans Niemann, was accused of cheating to defeat the number one player in the world.
The speculation, as strange as it may sound, was that Niemann had been using vibrating anal beads to send him signals which assisted him in making the correct chess moves.
Many moons later, the issue was settled once and for all when all of the parties involved agreed to move on after a Chess.com investigation concluded that the allegations were false.
End of story, right? Not so fast.
This week, chess and accusations of the use of vibrating anal beads were once again back in the news.
Now it’s the world of Xiangqi, or Chinese Chess, that is feeling the heat.
The Chinese Xiangqi Association (CXA) announced this week that it had banned Yan Chenglong, who recently won the national title of “Xiangqi King.”
According to ABC in Australia…
Yan allegedly clenched and unclenched rhythmically to communicate information about the chess board via code to a computer, which then sent back instructions on what moves to make in the form of vibrations, according to reports circulating on the Chinese social site Weibo.
“Based on our understanding of the situation, it is currently impossible to prove that Yan engaged in cheating via ‘anal beads’ as speculated on social media,” the CXA said.
So why was he banned?
Well, apparently getting hammered and taking a dump in a hotel bathtub after winning your title is frowned upon by the CXA.
“Yan consumed alcohol with others in his room on the night of the 17th, and then he defecated in the bathtub of the room he was staying in on the 18th, in an act that damaged hotel property, violated public order and good morals, had a negative impact on the competition and the event of Xiangqi, and was of extremely bad character,” the CXA said in a statement.
So, how do we put an end to all of this alleged cheating in chess? No, not full body scans for competitors. Just send in the robots.